It is often desirable to use skylights or other like panels in the construction of structures that have an interior space that will be heated or cooled, depending on the season, and an exterior surface that is exposed to the elements. While such skylights can provide light to interior space without the use of any other energy source, or provide desirable aesthetics, they typically lack the insulating value of the other building materials found in the ceilings, roofs, or walls of a structure. Therefore, while skylights or other like panels may provide desirable aesthetic qualities and energy savings with regard to the consumption of energy for the production, they are often an energy drain as to the heat that passes through the panels.
For example, it is typical to construct a skylight or other like panels with more than one glazing in order to utilize the insulating properties of the air trapped between the panes, while still creating a substantially translucent, if not transparent system. However, during cold weather, for example, warm air between the panes of such skylights and panels rises upward, typically the same direction as the primary heat flow through the skylight. The warm air adjacent to the colder upper glazing is cooled and falls, to be replaced repeatedly by more warm air from below. This circulation cycle tends to considerably amplify unwanted heat loss by convection. Additionally, due to typical orientation of skylights, there is often significant unwanted heat loss in the form of radiation to the night sky.
Consequently, there is a need for a skylight system that, while still allowing light to pass through, provides for an increased insulating value so as to also conserve the energy that is otherwise required to heat or cool an interior room or space. It is particularly desirable to increase the insulating value of such a system with minimal reduction to amount of light that passes through the system.